Yumz Las Vegas

Summer is in full swing and temps are hitting 100+ degrees here in Vegas. Most people are hibernating in their A/C filled home, but not us! People always wonder how Las Vegans make it through these dry heat summers. I'll give you a hint.....FROYO! I'm been obsessed with frozen yogurt from the get-go, but let me tell ya, Yumz has brought my addiction to a whole other level. I was invited to their Grand Opening celebration to sample their products complimentary, however, all thoughts and opinions in this post are 100% my own.

Starting out in my hometown state of Illinois, Yumz has migrated to the West Coast and opened their first Las Vegas location. Yumz Las Vegas opened their doors on May 2nd, 2014 and I had the pleasure of meeting both Tanner Hodson, General Manager, as well as John Barnes, co-founder of Yumz. Both of them were so humble, which made me love their establishment even more.

John Barnes, co-founder of Yumz

They offer a self-serve concept which allows customers to fill their cup with any gourmet frozen yogurt flavor, add a variety of toppings, weigh it and then love it. Not only does their froyo have the creamy consistency of ice cream, but it's also only 85 to 100 calories per serving!! Woot woot! They have also mastered all of their 50+ flavors to be fat free, gluten free, kosher certified, and packed with probiotics. Their Greek flavors even provide a whopping 7g of protein per serving. Walking into Yumz, you'll notice that they offer about 14 different flavors at a time and they rotate the flavors about every two weeks so everyone can experience their wide array of flavors. They're sectioned off into four different categories: tart, regular, no sugar added, and sorbet so there's a little something for everyone. Their toppings bar is the most extensive one I've seen at any frozen yogurt place! Anything you can dream of: cereal, candy, fresh fruit, popping boba, nuts (which are separated for people who may have nut allergies), whipped cream, and even Ghirardelli chocolate and caramel flavored sauce. Yea I know, Yumz is right!

They also have a party room, which I think is genius! It can accommodate up to 30 guests and you have two party room options:

1. "The Room" Package: You can rent the room itself for just $100 for 2 hours and bring your own food. Tanner also has connections with the local restaurants adjacent to Yumz if you needed catering help. This package is great for things such as after-season soccer celebrations or club meetings where you just want a space to gather, eat, and mingle. $50 for each additional hour. (froyo not included)
2. The "Froyo" Package: Pay $15 per person and that price will include unlimited Yumz frozen yogurt along with the party space for a two hour time span.This is great package to host a birthday party among other celebrations. I mean 2 hours of unlimited froyo for $15?! It's a no-brainer. $50 for each additional hour.

There's even a TV in the party room to stream you favorite movie. Ahem, Frozen lovers. *sigh* All this talk about Yumz is making me crave it again. It's OK though, it's a healthy snack for me and I joined their Frequent Filler Club so I get rewarded every time I go. It's free to join and you just swipe your card every time you go to earn your rewards. It'll save you $2 on any shirt or hat, and you earn 1 point for every ounce of yogurt purchased. After you purchase 100 ounces, you’ll get a free 6 ounce yogurt. After 500 ounces, you’ll get a free Yumz shirt. What's are my favorite flavors you ask? Hmm, that's a trick question isn't it? If I had to choose, so far I love NY Cheesecake, Oatmeal Cookie, and Watermelon Cooler. JAM recommends Oatmeal Cookie, Chocolate, and Cake Batter. Look out for Yumz's seasonal flavors during the holidays like Egg Nog, Gingerbread, and Pumpkin Pie.

Check out their other awesome deals!

For more information about Yumz, please visit their website http://www.yumzfrozenyogurt.com/.

 Follow Them!
Yumz on Facebook
Yumz Las Vegas' Facebook
Twitter: @YumzFroyo
Instagram: @YumzFrozenYogurt

If you're ever in the Las Vegas area, be sure to visit their awesome location:
Yumz Gourmet Frozen Yogurt
6135 S. Fort Apache Rd. Suite #400
Las Vegas, NV 89148
(702) 201-1155

Preventing Childhood Obesity

The hardest thing about my weight loss journey is portion control. I grew up in a household where there was always four or five different meal options to choose from and not finishing the food on your plate wasn't an option. Eating the proper portions were never a thing that was brought up in the house, and I've sadly carried that trend into my own little family. This past year was all about making a lifestyle change to not only lose weight but to live a healthier lifestyle overall. The deeper I got into this journey, the more I realized that it needed to be a household thing not just an individual process. I couldn't try to improve my own health without teaching JAM and Mahal what I'm learning along the way. Clearly there was some hesitation from the both of them because they've seen how my eating habits have slowly changed and they weren't sure if they wanted to be a part of that. In my opinion, the best way to make a change is to make it fun.

I'm so happy to be supporting Fresh Baby in their mission to prevent childhood obesity. I'm a firm believer that our children are our future and change definitely starts with them. I wouldn't say that JAM is obese, but I do know that we could definitely eat a little healthier as a family. JAM naturally plays a lot of sports and being the rowdy little boy that he is, it's not that hard to convince his to run around and play outside with his friends as a method of daily exercise. However, he wasn't too on board when he heard the words "more fruits and veggies", "more lean meats" or "less processed foods", which was totally understandable. Fresh Baby not only made this lifestyle change easy for JAM, they made it easy for the whole family on our mission to healthier eating.

Fresh Baby teamed with the USDA to help families like ours to determine "What's the right amount of food for my family's plate?" Kids love new, shiny "toys" so when JAM saw the package from Fresh Baby on our doorstep he was super excited to find out what was inside. Fresh Baby provided us with: a Let's Move Foam Puzzle, a Kid's 4-Section Plate, an Adult 4-Section plate, a Kid's Portion Tip Card, an Adult Water Bottle, a Mom's Water Bottle, a Kid's Water Bottle, and a Kid's Apron (all the thoughts and opinions written about these products are completely my own).

The awesome thing about Fresh Baby's website is they offer a ton of articles, recipes, and downloadable tips sheets to help ease the transition to healthier eating. The USDA takes it a step further on their site www.choosemyplate.gov and offers tools like the Super Tracker which offers a variety of interactive features to help you manage weight, set goals, and even journal your progress. JAM was already introduced to the food groups in school, but we still went over the Kid's Portion Tip Card together. I was honestly shocked at how far off our home portion sizes were compared to USDA recommendations. For some categories, I was serving JAM double or even triple the recommended serving amount! So, to help re-wire BOTH of our brains, JAM threw on his Kid's Apron and started helping me prepare dinner every day so that we worked together in preparing healthier meals. The Kid's and Adult 4-Section plates make portion sizing fool proof at dinner time. JAM had a blast using his special plate and filling in each food group on it. One important thing we learned during this journey was how important it was to drink a lot of water. The provided water bottles made it super easy to make sure we were getting enough daily intake and we used the tools on the USDA website to track all of that. JAM would fill up his fun, kid's water bottle, clip it to his belt loop on his shorts, and off he went to play with his friends outside.

Fresh Baby and the USDA definitely gave us the eye opener we needed when they provided my family with these awesome tools for healthier eating. Thank you so much for getting us on the right track and we will definitely continue this lifestyle change into the future. I'm definitely proud to help prevent childhood obesity starting with my own child right at home.

What healthy eating steps are you practicing at home?

A Healthier Me: Enough is ENOUGH!

With the loss of another family member, I started to do a little self reflection. On both sides of my family you can find an array of  health issues mainly due to poor eating habits and just being unhealthy in general. From bad heart, high cholesterol, diabetes, gout, glaucoma, high blood pressure, you name it, someone in my family probably has it. Even some of the slimmest and healthiest LOOKING family members suffer from high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or heart issues where it usually is due to our diet. Most of these issues are not uncommon for Filipinos in general. Heart disease is the number one killer in Filipinos and my grandmother has lost her brothers to a stroke way too early. Most of the time situations like these can be avoided with something as simple as a lifestyle change. My maternal grandfather has had to have intense heart surgery over the past year and although he's in his late 70s, he's trying his best to get healthier. Better late than never I guess. I lost my paternal grandmother to a heart attack, along with other health issues and circumstances but a heart attack ended up being her cause of death.

My grandma's 3 brothers that have passed

It got me to think, "what am I doing?!" My family jokes around about being overweight or loving fried, greasy, fatty, salty Filipino foods or excessive amounts of red meat, but no one ever sat us down and told us that X amount of family members have died from unhealthy eating habits and lifestyles. After Tito Flory died from a stroke, it honestly put me in check. I know it shouldn't take a family death to wake me up but sometimes I guess it was what I need. So here's my public declaration and cry for help. I'm not so much worried about being skinny and being a size 2 within 3 months. I want to make a LIFESTYLE change. I want to be healthy. I'm tired of being tired (literally). I'm forever sleepy, always craving, eating what I want, when I want, how much I want. Portion control is my weakness. I know it sounds fatty but I legit have a food issue I think! If something tastes yummy to me it's like I have to keep eating it until it's all gone! Out of sight out of mind or something. I don't know. I could barely breathe sometimes and I'll still pick at my plate for whatever reason. No self strength or something. I was raised to not waste food either. "Clean your plate" they tell me. "You know how many people are starving around the world and look how much food you waste" they say. Also, growing up I was used to eating a certain amount of food. Nowadays, if I see that I only ate a quarter of my "usual" portion, my brain is like "there's no way you're full because you only had X amount of food. I could feel content physically with the little portion I ate but my brain is telling me it wasn't enough.

No more. I feel like I'm young enough where I can still make a change for the healthier. I want to life to be 110 years old if I'm allowed the privilege. I want to see my great-grandkids and run around with them too. No more getting winded by just walking up the stairs. No more borderline high blood pressure. JAM's going to be 7 years old this year! Let's shed that extra 35-40 lbs. of baby weight I've maintained over these 7 years. It's time. I'm ready. I hope my family joins me on this venture so we can be healthy TOGETHER! It's not funny anymore. My grandparents are outliving people 5 to 10+ years younger than them to health issues that can possibly be reversed! I don't have many health nut or positive role models surrounding me when it comes to living this healthy lifestyle change. Where do I start?

I know the "healthy me" is in there somewhere!

You guys need to be my motivation and weight loss buddy until I figure this thing out!